This morning Cape Cod Healthcare announced it reached a tentative one-year contract agreement with United Healthcare, allowing more than 3,500 United members to continue to receive care at CCHC, CCHC said in a release.

CCHC said, "while negotiations were challenging, this tentative agreement ensures CCHC’s top objective – that United Healthcare members are able to access CCHC for their health care needs."

According to the Cape Cod Times, negotiations have been going on for more than a year. Also, "early last month, United Healthcare policy holders received a letter saying they could face higher charges at Cape Cod and Falmouth hospitals if a deal could not be reached."

Both parties have committed to working on a more comprehensive agreement next year that will include Cape Cod Health Network (“CCHN”) a partnership between CCHC and the 290-plus physicians of the Cape Cod Preferred Physicians (“CCPP”) organization, established toimprove the quality and efficiency of how patient care is delivered, CCHC said in the release.